The Laramie Project

In October 1998 Matthew Shepard was kidnapped, severely beaten and left to die, tied to a fence on the outskirts of Laramie, Wyoming. Soon after the brutal beating, Moisés Kaufman and fellow members of the Tectonic Theater Project began year-long interviews with two hundred town residents. The Laramie Project was born from those interviews. The brutal murder of Matthew Shepard, an openly gay twenty-one year old student, sparked a dialogue about hate crimes that rocked the nation and continues to this day. “There is that sense of a stately procession through which swims a stirring medley of emotions: anger, sorrow, bewilderment and, most poignantly, a defiant glimmer of hope.” – Ben Brantley, NY Times